Let Down your Hair
by theatricalAttorney
Summary: A long time ago, there was just the earth, and the sun. (Fierrochase Tangled AU)
1. Chapter 1

Long ago, in the time before there were kings and queens, before there were societal constructs of gender roles, there was the sun, and there was the earth.

But, the sun loved the earth, and tried with all her might to reach her, but try as she might, she could only get a single drop of golden sunlight to touch the earth.

That sunlight grew and grew, until it was a beautiful flower with magical properties. If you sang a very special song, the flower had the ability to heal.

Eventually, a kingdom grew near the flower, ruled by them beloved King Frey and Queen Natalie, and Natalie was expecting to have a baby soon.

However, nearing the end of her pregnancy, Queen Natalie grew ill, and nothing the kingdom's finest doctors could do would cure it.

The kingdom had one last hope. The people had heard legends of a magical golden flower that could heal anything, even age, and set of in search of it.

But, someone, a cruel man, knew the location of the flower, and he wasn't to willing to share. His name was Loki, and for centuries, he had used the magical flower to stay young, by singing to it. He placed a fake bush around the flower when he wasn't singing to it so that none would find it.

Sometime later, one of the guards searching accidentally knocked over the false bush, and found a glowing flower. The flower was brewed into a healing soup, which was fed to Queen Natalie, healing her and ensuring a successful childbirth.

A few days later, a healthy baby boy, a prince, with long golden hair, was born. The king and queen named him Magnus.

To celebrate his birth, the king and queen released floating lanterns into the sky.

Their happiness was soon cut short. Later that night, Loki snuck into the castle later that night, and sang the magical song to the newborn. To his unsurprise, the hair began to glow and make Loki younger. He then to cut the hair, hoping that it would retain the magical properties. Not only did the hair not retain its properties, it also woke the child up.

Magnus began to scream, awaking his parents and Aunt Freya, who had come to celebrate her nephew's birth, and had the room closest to the child.

Loki knew that if he left them alive, they would spread news of his appearance and find him, so he killed them all, and took the child.

By the time Freya's son, Blitzen, and his boyfriend, Hearthstone, had came into the nursery, all that was left were three bloodied corpses.

Since the king, the queen, and the king's sister were all dead, the next in line was Blitzen, who accepted the crown and later married Hearthstone. One of their first initiatives as kings was to attempt to find Magnus, but though the kingdom searched and searched, they couldn't find the child.

For deep in the forest bordering the kingdom from its neighboring coastal kingdom, was a tower. And in that tower, Loki was raising Magnus as his own.

* * *

Loki brushed Magnus' hair. The child had attempted to get out of the tower again, and messed up his hair. "Why can't I go outside?" Magnus asked.

Loki sighed. Magnus had asked him this question many times before, and each time, he provided the same answer. "The outside world is a dangerous place, filled with horrible, selfish people. You must stay here, where you're safe. Do you understand, flower?"

"Yes daddy," Magnus replied.


	2. Chapter 2

Magnus moved a row of books over. Hmmph. No sign of Jack. He peered out the window. Jack had made the mistake of not changing his tail's color, so Magnus could see him. However, Magnus knew it would be easier to trick Jack into a trap, so he left the window and loudly said, "Yep! No Jack on the window! I guess that I have lost this game of hide and seek!"

Jack snickered, obviously thinking that he had won. Magnus heard the snicker, and scooped him up. Doing a small celebratory dance, he gloated, "I won and you lost. I won and you lost," over and over.

Jack sighed. "Are you done yet?" the lizard asked.

"Yeah, but what do you wanna do now?" Magnus used his hair to pull himself and Jack into the higher part of the tower, nearing the only unpainted part of the wall, and began painting.

"Well… we could actually _go outside_ for once," Jack suggested.

"Nuh-uh. Nope. You _know_ I can't go outside. My dad says so." Magnus responded.

"Well, then what _do_ you want to do? Your sixteenth birthday is in three, you be planning to do _something_." Jack shot back.

"Well, I'm gonna finish painting the walls, and move on to the floor, which has taken, what, like, six years, I think?" Magnus mused.

"Maybe you could ask your dad to go see the lights," Jack suggested.

"What lights," Magnus asked

"You know, the floating lights, the ones that are only released on your birthday, the ones you're doing a painting of right now, the ones you're always talking about, _those_ lights," Jack explained.

"Well right now, I just finished painting the walls, which I plan on baking a cake for if we have the ingredients, and doing my chores. Then we'll see about asking dad." Magnus lowered himself and Jack from the ledge on which they'd been standing, and set about doing his chores.

Alex wrapped her garrote around the round castle tower, and began to climb. One of her partners, Mallory used her daggers to climb. Her other partner, Halfborn, used his strength to pull himself up using the bricks that jutted out of the tower. Alex scoped out the palace, home to King Blitzen and King Hearthstone. She was on a mission, an important one. If she screwed this up, it would lead to the capture of her partners in thievery.

Next to her, Halfborn shared a glance with Mallory, and they both nodded at the same time. Alex had no idea how they could read each other's mind like that, maybe that was just a thing couple's could do, but either way, she didn't know what they were doing.

"So, what's the plan, you two lovesick idiots?" Alex decided that if she was going to be under informed, she could at least be under informed whilst insulting her companions.

"First off, _I'm_ not an idiot," Mallory began. Halfborn squawked indignantly. "And second off, the plan is for us to lower you into there."

"Um, no. Why can't Halfborn do it?" Alex asked.

"We're not strong enough to lower him down. You're the lightest out of all of us, and the best at stealth too." Mallory explained.

"Well, fine. But if I fall to my death, you're paying for my funeral," Alex said, tying the rope that Mallory handed her around her waist. Alex handed the other end of the rope to Halfborn, opened the skylight, and let herself be lowered down into the Crown Hall.

Alex drank in the sight of Crown Hall, which was about to lose its namesake. She spotted said namesake- the crown the infant prince had been wearing when he had been taken, and his parents and aunt had been murdered.

She briefly considered against stealing one of the last known things the baby prince had worn- but as much as she liked the kingdom, she needed money more. Besides, the prince had to be what- at least her age now? If he didn't want the crown to be stolen, he should have claimed it, Alex reasoned.

She snuck up behind the two guards extremely carefully, and then, without making so much as a peep, grabbed the crown and put it in her satchel.

Just then, a guard sneezed, and she couldn't help it, she was a creature of habit."Bless you," Alex said.

Alex quickly realized what she had done, and yanked on the rope twice as fast as she could.

Halfborn started to pull her up, and to her relief, she was on the roof before she was spotted by the guards.

King Blitzen sighed and dismissed the guard. He didn't blame the guard for the young king's crown being stolen. Blitzen just wanted to find the prince and heir to the throne, but it seemed like fate was actively working against him. The item with one of the strongest connections to the prince disappears only _three days_ before his birthday, the day the kingdom releases the floating lanterns? It was too close to be a coincidence.

Still, Magnus' sixteenth birthday was coming up, and he knew the kingdom was tired of searching. Blitzen had told the guards that this was the last year they would be searching. This was the year he and Hearthstone were giving up hope.

Whatever happened this year, it would be the last year they were searching.


End file.
